Middle East: The Palestinian leader and Ariel Sharon are likely to meet next month but that first encounter will be the easy part, writes Peter Hirschberg in Jerusalem.
It was an event that attracted little media coverage, but it was no less significant in the message it broadcast than the highly publicised deployment of Palestinian policemen in the northern Gaza Strip last week to stop the firing of rockets by militants into Israel.
Newly-elected Palestinian leader Mr Mahmoud Abbas ordered Palestinian bulldozers earlier this week to tear down shacks erected illegally along the Gaza coastline. Some owners complained that in electing Mr Abbas they had gotten another Ariel Sharon - a reference to the Israeli prime minister and the thousands of homes destroyed by his military during the intifida uprising.
But Mr Abbas's message was clear: his call for an end to violence and disorder was not empty rhetoric and was as much a reference to attacks on Israel by armed groups as it was to the chaos that has enveloped the West Bank and Gaza with the disintegration of the Palestinian Authority over the last four years.
In other steps to end the violence and wrest control of the streets back from armed groups, the Palestinian Authority yesterday issued an edict banning the carrying of weapons in public. There were also reports that Mr Abbas was about to appoint an interior minister known for his distaste of the militant groups. Through the uprising, militants have become dominant in certain areas of the West Bank and Gaza, imposing their own brand of justice, often settling disputes by force.
Mr Abbas, viewed by many before his election as a gray technocrat who lacked the stomach for tough decisions, has moved to implement his "no violence" message with an alacrity that has stunned even sceptical Israeli leaders. Following the deployment of Palestinian security forces in Gaza, violence has dropped dramatically, including the launching of makeshift rockets into Israel and the firing of mortars at Jewish settlements in the Strip. Mr Abbas has also intimated he is on the verge of convincing groups like Hamas to agree to a ceasefire that would end all attacks on Israelis.
The moves drew rare praise from Mr Sharon yesterday: "There is no doubt that Abu Mazen [ Abbas] has begun to work," he told the daily Yediot Ahronoth. "I am very satisfied with what I hear is happening on the Palestinian side."
Later, he sounded almost euphoric. "I believe that the conditions are now ripe to allow us and the Palestinians to reach a historic breakthrough in the relations between us," he said in Tel Aviv.
The measures taken by Mr Abbas, along with Israel's readiness to restrict its military actions, are expected to pave the way for a meeting between the two leaders next month. The Palestinian leader, under pressure from his people to deliver on demands for an easing of restrictions on their lives - like removal of the myriad army checkpoints across the West Bank - will want to ensure he emerges with more than a photo opportunity from the summit.
He wants Israel to agree to release many of the thousands of Palestinian security prisoners in its jails and begin withdrawing from West Bank towns and cities it re-occupied in 2002. If Mr Abbas is to succeed in convincing militants to maintain a ceasefire, he knows he will have to get Israel to agree to stop targeting them. He is also aware his timeframe is tight. "The Israelis have to respond quickly. We cannot wait for a week or two," he said yesterday in Ramallah.
Mr Sharon will have one thing on his mind going into a summit - security. He will want to maintain pressure on Mr Abbas to end the violence and incitement against Israel. The prime minister appears ready, though, to drop his previous insistence on zero violence before he agrees to meet the Palestinian leader.
The first meeting could turn out to be the easy part. Palestinian Prime Minister Mr Ahmed Korei played party pooper Wednesday with a sobering message: the renewed diplomatic contacts, he said, "will not be serious" until Israelis and Palestinians sit down to discuss the substantive issues at the heart of the conflict, like borders, Palestinian refugees and the future status of Jerusalem.
Mr Abbas knows that if he wants to put these issues back on the negotiating table - and force Mr Sharon to discuss them - he will first have to end the violence and reform the security and political structures of the Palestinian Authority.
If he can confound many of the sceptics, on both sides, who think he is sincere about ending the violence but are not convinced he can, Mr Abbas believes international and domestic pressure will build on the Israeli leader to join him at the negotiating table. He has already begun to accumulate points in the international community by acting without first waiting for Israel to fulfil a list of Palestinian demands.
Mr Sharon has said he is willing to co-ordinate his plan to withdraw unilaterally from Gaza in the summer with the Palestinians. But co-ordination is not negotiation. The Israeli leader does not believe a comprehensive peace agreement with the Palestinians is attainable and will be anxious to escape having to discuss final status issues with Mr Abbas.
At most, Mr Sharon believes a long-term interim deal can be struck, that might include a Palestinian state inside temporary borders in Gaza and parts of the West Bank.
For that reason, Mr Abbas might want to wait to accept control of Gaza after Israel exits, before getting to the hotly disputed issues. But he knows his people will not be eternally patient. To force Mr Sharon to talk substance, he will need the Americans. He will have been listening attentively to the recent inaugural speech by George W Bush, in which the US president said liberty in America "increasingly depends on liberty in other lands".
During the intifida, Mr Bush held Yasser Arafat largely responsible for the violence and moved to isolate the Palestinian leader, accepting Mr Sharon's assertion that Mr Arafat was not a legitimate peace partner. By taking steps to end the violence, Mr Abbas is striving to shatter the "no-partner" mantra and to begin to chip away at the strong US support for Israel over the last four years. If he can shape a society that resembles something of a democracy, he will be able to present an American leader who has pledged to spread democracy through the Middle East but is mired in Iraq, with an invaluable gift: an emerging Arab democracy.
For all the sudden optimism, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has repeatedly proven that if bad things can happen, they will.
Several attempts at a ceasefire have failed during the last four years. The one that lasted longest was orchestrated by Mr Abbas in 2003. It crumbled after a few weeks, amid renewed attacks by militants and renewed Israeli military action. A short while later the Palestinian leader, then serving as prime minister under Mr Arafat, handed in his resignation.
The calm orchestrated by Mr Abbas over the last 10 days remains brittle. Sporadic violence continues. Israeli troops shot dead a Hamas militant on Wednesday in the West Bank and armed groups immediately threatened to retaliate. If rocket attacks into Israel resume, or the Israeli military continues to target militants, the optimism will quickly evaporate and both Mr Abbas and Mr Sharon will face domestic pressure to adopt uncompromising positions.